You got to hand it to the Army Corps of Engineers- or at least their policymakers. If all they know how to do is hammer, why, the whole world must be a nail.
COLUMBIA, La. – The Army Corps of Engineers is on a mission to chop down every tree in the country that grows within 15 feet of a levee — including oaks and sycamores in Louisiana, willows in Oklahoma and cottonwoods in California.
The corps is concerned that the trees' roots could undermine barriers meant to protect low-lying communities from catastrophic floods like the ones caused by Hurricane Katrina.
An Associated Press survey of levee projects nationwide shows that the agency wants to eliminate all trees along more than 100,000 miles of levees. But environmentalists and some civil engineers insist the trees pose little or no risk and actually help stabilize levee soil...
Obviously these guys are not reading their own textbooks. Trees like baldcypress and oaks help dissipate floods and stabilize earthworks. Willows and cottomwood have been used for flood control purposes along rivers for centuries. Of course, you plant palm trees near or on a levy, it's going to destabilize it- there's no extensive roots.
It was why the aftersurge from Katrina was so deadly. Maybe their bureaucrats should download their own publications [.pdf].
The desk jockeys who thought up those orders got engineering degrees from Regent University.
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